The Healing Process
by Glass Vial
Summary: The Witch has been defeated, but that doesn't mean that life in the O.Z. can go back to how it used to be. Things have changed - for better and for worse - and getting used to it is going to take a while . . . Co-written with 'Stephy-Lou Clark-Weasley'


_Two little princesses dancing in a row . . ._

Dark, very dark, a lot of cackling, very creaky and croaky cackling.

"Who's there?"

"Az . . . Az . . . Az . . ."

She can see people, lots of blank faced, innocent people and their screams - oh, God their screams!

Ambrose looking terrified, begging, pleading, almost crying. Her mother's cold face as she stared at her with unforgiving, empty purple eyes. Her father with such bitter disappointment in his warm brown ones. Bright, large, wide terrified blue eyes as the life was being choke out of her.

"Cuh . . . Uh . . . Uh . . . Az . . ."

_Where the light goes, no one ever knows . . ._

No more light. Only darkness. The mirror image of an old woman cackling in that creaky and croaky laugh.

"Take my hand."

A beautiful dead girl. Skin so pale, and a funny smell as she started to rot away.

"Take my hand."

She was blown off the roof.

"_NO_!"Azkadelia shot up with a harsh scream that seemed to have ripped itself freely from her throat. Hands held up in the air as if she was trying to grab hold of the phantom child-DG from seconds ago. Her room was dark apart from the dim light of her bedside lamp that she had yet to sleep without, the odd distorted shapes of her furniture were quickly moulding themselves into mo-bats and witches and victims. She turned to face her lamp and grabbed hold of her mattress for some sort of comfort.

"Where the light goes no one ever knows . . ." She sang softly trying to bring herself to close her eyes. She couldn't. Not yet. Not while the phantoms were still so fresh in her mind.

The door opened and she refused to turn just in case it's one of the long coats or that servant who kept following her like a lost puppy.

Footsteps pattered behind her. Female. Might be the witch.

The mattress groaned slightly under the weight of the new person. The bed covers being pulled up as they slipped in behind her. An arm wrapping itself tightly around her waist.

"Deej?" she whispered, unsure.

"Go to sleep Az, m'gonna kick those mo-bats arses so hard that their ancestors would feel it." DG muttered sleepily.

Az rolled over and cuddled into her younger sister's shoulder, breathing in the strange scent that was so different from the child scent of before.

"Bloody ankle-biters." DG muttered in her sleep as she kicked out.

Az couldn't help but giggle.

* * *

If three months ago someone had turned round and told Jeb that he would spend his career protecting Azkadelia, he would have called them crazy, punched them and then locked them in the tin suit as a reminder why he would kill Azkadelia. And yet, here he was wandering the castle grounds for the missing elder princess who apparently turned out to be possessed all of these years. Why the Queen had assigned him to her eldest he would never understand, didn't she know what Azkadelia's men had done to his family? Didn't she know that his impulse control was worse than his father's? His father who was head of the royal guard and now Princess DG's bodyguard - it's obvious who was the Queen's favourite daughter, isn't it?

Sighing with frustration Jeb was partially relieved to see that her Royal Highness Crown Princess Azkadelia was sitting over there on an old child's swing, reading a book. As he got closer he took a startled step back when he realised how much the woman had changed in appearance in the past three months.

Azkadelia was a cross of a nightmare and a wet dream for men. She wore tight sexy yet commanding outfits with heavily made up eyes and red painted lips, her sleek black hair long and elaborately done up. Now her hair was short, shoulder length and wild. Her dress was simple cotton and brightly coloured, her feet were bare and her face un-made up. She looked like a child as her toes barely grazed the grass.

He cleared his throat. "Your highness." She fell off the swing immediately. "Your highness!" He exclaimed running to her side and helping her up. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Azkadelia said, swatting him away. "Don't worry about me." She mumbled. She looked up at him owlishly and blinked. "Jebediah, right?"

"Jeb." He corrected her immediately.

She nodded. "I'm surprised you haven't killed me yet."

"Princess! I may have hated you but I am a man of honour and I don't have any need to kill you. It is my job to protect you now." Jeb said flushing. He didn't think she would be so cynical then again she had been possessed by one of the greatest evils in the O.Z. . . .

"It's okay." She said softly. "Even I hate myself right now."

"You shouldn't hate." He said quietly. "My father said that if you don't have heart, you don't have anything. But then again my father is a cradle robber since he has the hots for your little sister."

Azkadelia looked horrified. "But . . . But . . . What about Ambrose?"

Jeb blinked. "Who?"

She shook her head. "Never mind, I take it my mother has got worried again?"

"Ah, yes, I have been sent to find you and bring you back. Apparently I'm your new bodyguard."

She smiled at him, a small little twitched of the lips and he felt some butterflies flutter in his stomach. He never had a need to look at women when working with the resistance, so the first girl he actually had some sort of contact with was DG - potential step-mothers don't count.

Azkadelia was the first true woman he has met and she was also the most beautiful.

"Nice to meet you."She said softly before turning round and heading back to the castle.

He had a hard time trying to keep his eyes off of her.

* * *

Azkadelia could hear voices outside her bedroom door.

"I really don't see why we have to do this." That was her sister, sounding very annoyed.

"Would you quieten down? You'll make her think that something is wrong!" And that was the long-suffering royal advisor, his tone clipped and patient as he dealt with DG better than anyone else could."Something is wrong! They're going to make me wear a -"

"Deej."

There was silence after that, and in the moments before they knocked on her door Azkadelia smiled to herself. She was convinced that DG and Glitch - Ambrose? No, definitely Glitch - were the sole reason the phrase 'two sides of the same coin' was invented. They balanced each other out perfectly.

She crossed the room to open the door and was faced with an exasperated looking Glitch and a pouting DG.

"Yes?" She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself laughing at her little sister's experssion.

"Crown Princess Azkadelia, the Queen and Prince Consort have requested the presence of both you and your sister the - oh, forget it." Glitch gave up on the protocol almost instantly. "Az, your parents want to see you and DG in the throne room."

"Thank you." She smiled at him, closing the door behind her as she joined them in the hallway. "I gather you know what this is about?" She addressed DG.

"I don't even want to talk about it." Her sister muttered, heading off towards the stairs.

"Oh Deej, it can't be that bad!"

This protest was met by a short burst of laughter from Glitch, who simply smiled when Azkadelia turned to frown at him.

"Probably not for you, but it is for her." He clarified as they began to follow DG.

"Oh I'm not even sure that I want to know." Azkadelia sighed. Even if whatever their parents were planning didn't seem that bad from her point of view, she could tell that putting up with a sulking DG would put everyone to the test.


End file.
